


Grande Finale

by MechanicalMermaids



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: M/M, What happens next will only make you sad, When Julian's flair for dramatics backfires, You and Julian that is, based on the last update
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-25 15:47:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12535348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MechanicalMermaids/pseuds/MechanicalMermaids
Summary: "I don't want to talk about it."Asra doesn't have to be told to know what transpired.





	Grande Finale

Asra contemplates playing a fool for a second. After all, he barely got back and having a vague feeling he would sooner or later find his apprentice back home, he headed straight to the shop. And apparently he was not far off the mark as less than an hour later, Valentine appeared.

He doesn't have to ask to know where his apprentice has spent the last few days. Aside from the completely out of character expensive looking clothing, that bores signs of Nadia's handiwork all over them, he carries that specific stench of a cheap marketplace. Asra's sure that if he would take a stronger whiff of air around him, the specific smell of a back alley establishment would be there too.

The gut tells him there is only one possible explanation for a sudden change of lifestyle that would only occur in a span of one week.

"Are you sure?" He asks, mostly to fill the silence between them with something, but Valentine just nods noncommittally and immediately starts heading towards their tiny living area upstairs. He doesn't as much as acknowledge Asra's presence with a glance and apparently satisfied with confirming that his master is still in one piece, he retreats into the shop and out of Asra's sight.

Honestly? Asra would be more shocked if his apprentice suddenly decided to share his thoughts with him, instead of proudly holding his tongue and forcing people around him to assume he was really that much of a heartless individual. But after so many years, none of that bothered Asra much anymore.

"I'm going to start brewing that sweet tea you like." He still narrates, unbothered and hoping that the promise of his favorite drink will be what'll bring Valentine back downstairs. Faust at least seems intrigued by the mention of it and slithers delicately down Asra's palm to inspect the opened tin box himself.

For the moment there is silence, but soon enough Asra can feel the light footsteps coming from above kitchen area as though Valentine was not trying to reveal his presence a moment too soon and decided to come back downstairs almost as an afterthought. Asra smiles a private little smile at that as his apprentice descends from the spiral staircase once again and regards them with quite sharpness in his features as though forbidding from uttering useless comments.

Asra finishes brewing the tea and after a bit of pondering he decides to fill one of the mugs for Faust as well. His familiar doesn't seem as much interested in drinking as swirling his body around the cup and luxuriating in warmth and the smell of beverage.

Valentine sets down at the table but his expression still seems deflated as though he was still pondering on something that happened recently and which he's still dead set on not sharing with Asra.

With that silent treatment that carries on over the course of their impromptu tea party, Asra is slowly starting to learn the taste of his own medicine. Valentine was always quick to accuse him of keeping secrets, was it in jest or otherwise but Asra would never assume that so soon came the day when his apprentice gained enough independence to become countess Nadia unofficial advisor and meander through the back alleys with a fugitive doctor. Which brought them back to an issue at hand.

"It's about Julian, isn't it?"

"I said I do not want to talk about it." Valentine's voice is as seething as it is tired. Oh dear. Their mutual fugitive friend must have pulled him through some hoops and not only today from the looks of it.

He's now looking somewhere at the distance. His posture as the table is slightly hunched and he's pulling a hand through his unruly hair in an absentminded motion that could indicate a nervous habit. But his eyebrows are pinched and his expression haggard in a way Asra has come to associate with some particularly unpleasant predictions.

Faust abandons his spot around the mug's handle to sniff at Valentine's fancy robe's sleeve inquisitively.

"I'll take that as a yes, just to keep the conversation going." Asra sighs heavily, his expression contorted in worry. Valentine's gaze shifts back to Asra without much enthusiasm, like a cat observing his owner's silly attempts at engaging in some sort of activity with him.

"I broke up with Julian." Valentine says finally, as though hoping to diffuse the situation before it escalates too far in Asra's mind. With anyone else, Asra might have assumed that his apprentice was simply putting on airs of not being affected by such an intimate admission but Valentine sounds almost clinical about it like he's just informing Asra he stopped buying the bread at their usual baker's stall.

"Oh dear." Asra repeats his earlier thought. He recalls the conversation he had with Valentine a few days ago.

 _'What is Julian to you?'_ The question has been just as unanticipated as it was mystifying. Asra already learned that his apprentice has been invited to the court short after his departure so he supposed the topic of Julian's assumed crime must have came up sooner or later. But the phrasing was off. Like Valentine already suspected that Julian was something to Asra based on the fact that they worked together for the brief period of time during the Plague.

Asra tried to explain as best as he could back then, without triggering some sort of negative reaction for his apprentice's memory like it has already happened back in a day with Asra's accidental and mostly careless remarks about their friends.

He anticipated Valentine's discontent at yet another cryptic answer but his apprentice's expression seemed as cool and calm as the surface of the water he was looking through at his master. Asra was almost holding his breath for the following _"Who am *I* to you?"_ but it never came. Instead, Valentine cut his line of interrogation short as though his academic curiosity has been quenched.

"Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?" Asra presses on. He doesn't even want to think about the state the doctor's in right now. Compared with Valentine's relative calm and something not unlike an irritating itch at the back of his mind that doesn't let his apprentice rest just yet, the fugitive doctor must be drinking heavily at one of his many haunts right about now, contemplating his masochistic tendencies.

Valentine just shakes his head.

Asra expected more. Midnight walks. Walking with his shawl pulled up defensively that only the bridge of this nose and an angry cat eyes are visible. Some sort of reaction would be nice.

'Do you even care, Valentine?' Asra founds himself thinking but not asking. He's not one to judge after all, when it comes to the kind of man that is Julian Devorak.

As though hearing his unsaid question, against all odds Valentine looks up from where he's been letting Faust curl around his fingers teasingly for quite some while. His gaze is piercing as though he is still daring Asra to vocalize the thought and trigger the inevitable argument between them but Asra backs down at the last moment. The tea is cooling between them, untouched save for Faust attempting to sip gingerly with his tongue from Valentine's mug when he's not looking.

"I'll be going now, if that's all." Valentine says finally and stands up from the chair almost noiselessly with Faust still swinging from his shoulder. Asra lets him go wordlessly.

He feared that Jules have had broken the boy's heart but it seems the other way around. Based on his previous experiences with the doctor he can only assume how in over his head Julian must have been and how utterly he has misinterpreted the potential signs of affection.

_Valentine you had to keep tied to yourself every step of the way. Like a balloon that's was about to fly off and never be seen again lest you carelessly lessen your grip on a string._

_And Julian, Julian was just the sort of man who would let the balloon go after making it promise that it would not fly too far away._

 

**Author's Note:**

> I learned the joy of letting my apprentice be a heartless bastard and Julian's my primary target.
> 
> Title from Studio Killers song with the same name. 
> 
> I consider writing more


End file.
